mandalei

Saw this while I was getting groceries today… Reese isn’t looking so good these days (sorry this is the best pic of the cover I could find).

Something about this cover makes her seem so tired.  Is she wearing a bathrobe?  just rawled out of bed?  What’s up with that lantern jaw?  It’s a far cry from this cover from September 2006:

As we say in the South, “Bless her heart.”

A friend told me they come in twos and fours.  Apparently this is so.  It would account for the INSANITY that was yesterday.

While my parents were up, we took the opportunity to make alot of food from scratch.  I love to cook, and this was a chance to cook for my family.  Here’s what we had, all made from scratch:

Friday
Baked eggs with herbs and homemade bread
Pizzas
(dinner out at Springwater Bistro–very good!)Saturday
Toast (still full from dinner the night before)
(lunch out at a local restaurant, maybe?)
Fresh pasta with butter and parm, fresh arugula mixed in, and sauteed lemon shrimp
Chocolate cake with whipped creamlayer and chocolate butter cream frosting.  AKA the Giant Ding-Dong.

Sunday
Cake for breakfast
Lunch out on the town (who knew brie and guacamole went together?)

Yesterday, I had a small crunchymom playgroup at my house, and made homemade mac and cheese and a salad based on one that I had from the Old Post Office restaurant on Edisto Island.  YUM.  of course, I think we need several days of recuperation time with all this food!  In other news, Jack had grapes for the first time yesterday and is in love with them.

Jack got his first tooth!  one of the ones on the bottom, which may soon have a neighbor, we think.  It’s a sharp little bit of toothiness.

Got it from this post on looking out for your marriage after kids.  Here it is:

“Marriage is not 50/50, it’s more like 90/10, sometimes you’re the 90 and sometimes you’re the 10″ so deal with it.

Actually, I wasn’t allowed to watch TV much at all. My parents deemed it best that I could choose a 30-minute program each day, and that was it. Let me tell you, the choices were agonizing. Where would I spend those precious moments? It was too short for a movie, and at that point we had this gigantic dish that could pick up movie channels like HBO and whatnot–if you dialed it in using just right, using a huge hand crank–a cruel, dangling carrot of a joke if you ask me. Would I start the day off with some cartoons before school? End the day with cartoons? The analysis of my options every day was a delicate operation. The one treat every week was when the whole family would watch Robin of Sherwood for a whole hour.

I wasn’t allowed to watch adult sitcoms–the themes were considered too adult-y for me, the child who was not allowed to use the word “butt” because it was a dirty word. Of course, anyone who has hear me speak in person knows that I have quite a potty mouth, and I believe to this day it stems from the pleasure of being able to say the word “butt”, now that I am older. And “fart”.

Anyway, where was I? Oh right, TV. I came across this article which suddenly brought all of these memories back. I distinctly remember, at the tender age of 4, being allowed to watch Dukes of Hazard but not allowed to watch Dallas, the show right after it; seeing Daisy in her skimpy little outfits helping the Duke boys flaunt the law time and again was OK, apparently. Dallas, though… Dallas was different. I remember being in my long, flannel, little girl nightgown watching DoH on a small 9″ black and white TV, which had to have the antenna (broken during a move) adjusted *justright*, as well as the vertical/horizontal dealies turned to the perfect spots. Since I don’t remember watching the show with them my parents must have been in another room. The program would end and my parents would call me to get ready for bed, but sometimes, they wouldn’t call right away, and in my little heart I would be like the Duke boys, wily and flaunting the law: I would turn the sound waaaaay down and watch old people wander around on the screen doing… stuff that was boring.

Let’s face it. Dallas was excruciatingly dull without the sound, but it was still delicious because I was watching something I shouldn’t have. My heart beat faster because it was forbidden.  Sure, I will never be able to talk lovingly the same way some of my friends did about TV in the 80s (Silver Spoons, Facts of Life, the Cosby Show, etc., etc.), but like that article I linked to earlier… there was alot of fun to be had trying to sneak TV. In the larger scheme of things, I also know that I read many more books than I would have and otherwise entertained myself by making things or otherwise being creative in what I chose to entertain myself with. I think about this now because we have our own kid, and while I keep saying that he will only be allowed to watch 30 minutes a day, I still find myself using the Food Network to get us through the last bit of the day. TV as sedative. But do I want him to have that same chance to read and be creative in entertaining himself? That thrill of getting away with something? You bet.

BUTT.

Chocolate Panna Cotta with Rasberry Sauce.

YUM.

Via SFGate.com:

Anger expressed by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews about pre-election polls that pegged the Democratic primary wrong led to a fascinating exchange between him and NBC anchor emeritus Tom Brokaw shortly before the end of that network’s coverage Tuesday. Matthews suggested the polls’ methodology should be investigated.

“You know what I think we’re going to have to go back and do?” Brokaw said. “Wait for the voters to make their judgment.”

Responded Matthews: “What do we do then in the days before the balloting? We must stay home, I guess.”

“No, we don’t stay home,” Brokaw said. “There are reasons to analyze what they’re saying. We know from how people voted today, what moved them to vote. You can take a look at that. There are a lot of issues that have not been fully explored during all this. But we don’t have to get in the business of making judgments before the polls have closed and trying to stampede, in effect, the process.”

Ben and I were watching Dirty Jobs tonight , where Mike Rowe was shoveling sh!t at the San Francisco Zoo (the Cheese Maker episode–I cannot find info on when it was first aired, and I know it doesn’t mention the zoo, but trust me, that was in it).  One of his final jobs was to prepare the food for the lions and tigers at their daily feeding and then feed them.

Ben and I looked at each other, and wondered if this was the same group of tigers that would have been involved in the recent attack and death.  I am pretty sure it isn’t, because in the episode there is only one Siberian tiger named Tony, and two Sumatran tigers, and the tiger that escaped was a female Siberian tiger (This tiger, named Tatiana, was a more recent addition to the zoo, coming in 2005 as a mate for Tony).  We watched as the food was prepared, and as we continued to watch, I had a very bad feeling; I was pretty sure we were looking at the woman who had her arm ripped apart by the same tiger who would later attack those three kids.

See, the woman that was showing Mike how to prepare the food was also the one feeding the animals with him, and as she did so, she walked right up to the cages and even reached through the bars to rub the cats’ backs.  Her attitude was very laid back, despite the fact that she was dealing with large predators, and she did not seem particularly wary, although she did mention that tigers needed more caution than lions.  In one shot, she has her entire hand and arm in the cage with the tiger handling his food and pushing it towards him.  I’m sorry but you don’t even do this with dogs who have been domesticated for thousands of years.  

At this point, I became certain that this must have been the woman who had been attacked well before the attack and killing last month, and I knew her name since Mike Rowe had introduced her.  I did a quick search on the internet, and yes, it was the same woman. I don’t know if, in the suit that she has brought against the city, they know of this footage because I think it is pretty damning.

Then I did a little more research and it seems like the San Francisco Zoo is very skeevy.  In fact, I have to wonder how the people in charge continue to be in the positions they are, given all of the things that have happened and the truly boneheaded things they have said (that cat was perhaps “just playing” when it tore her arm off and ate it? come on.)   See here for a professional observation,  because I am clearly not a professional, just a smaller softer individual who has deep human-animal memories of being tasty food for predators.

Last night, we decided on a near whom to go over to a friend’s house for the EVEnt. We had been invited for drinks and dinner, and to stay for the midnight festivities, but I have to admit to being very nervous about having Jack out of his routine (not sure if it’s his issue or me projecting!). Since our hostess was running in a rac starting at 5:30, we decided to show up at 6:30 after giving Jack dinner and a bath and dressing him in his fleece jammies. We packed his overnight diaper, his bear, his pack n play, night light, and his bottle, and off we went.

He was quiet and charming, and had this thing for gently touching the head of the little baby girl. He was very sweet about it, and was very calm even though it was half an hour or more past his normal bed time. We set up his pack n play, fed him his bottle, and put him down with his bear and he went right to sleep. We managed to stay out to midnight!! Together!! and Meet New Friends!! With such good omens, 2008 may have something good to say for itself. However, as Ben put it “it’s an election year, how bad can it be?”

So after midnight, we got all of our stuff together, started the car so it would warm up, and then off we went home. Jack was awake the whole car ride, but settled himself back down once we got him home and in his crib, and put himself back to sleep in about 15 minutes (thanks, Dr. Ferber!).

Welcome, 2008!